I was sitting in Chris Paget's "How to hack GSM" talk at DEFCON 18 last year[1], it was one of the biggest talks of the entire conference.
Chris has basically setup a make-shift cell tower in the room where the talk was being held, with two high-gain antenna pointed out towards the crowd. Behind him he had... (bear with me, I am not an EE guy) a huge receiver hooked to the antenna.
He kept belaboring the point that he was only turning the power up to some micro-fraction of what the box could output.
When someone at the front pushed him for more info "Why can't you turn it up more and try and pick up more cell phones from around the hotel?" he replied that if he "cranked it all the way up" he would "kick every cell phone in Vegas off their towers"... and then he kept presenting.
Given that Paget knows his stuff, and he is sitting there with equipment from any radio store... and could take at least most cell phones offline for a few-mile-radius if what he said was true... it seems to me that the biggest thread to America is just smart people in general.
He could hypothetically put that think in an SUV, turn it on, and just drive across town, causing havok all day long. ANYONE COULD.
Every time politicians learn about a new "threat to America" they get all excited, throw a saddle on the damn issue and ride it to glory, screaming and shouting the whole way until we can't remember why we ever thought it was safe to leave our houses in the first place.
I understand the need to push your own agendas for elections, but besides not being able to take laptops on airplanes, I only see a whole lot of hurt for citizens coming out of this.
While we're at it, you know what else is the worst threat ever to America? How about education, health, the sun, asteroids and gangs of unruly dogs.
And dropping a few concrete blocks onto railway lines could completely immobilise most countries with fear. Ditto for a few shooting sprees in shopping malls. It's easy to think of any number of utterly trivial ways to bring a society to a standstill.
The fact that these things aren't happening every day gives the lie to the "war on terror."
Counterpoint: the DC sniper meant that people shoot down plenty of outdoor gatherings just based on the fear that he might shoot somebody.
Or even the hunt against geeks/trench-coat wearing people after Columbine (instead of just going after people who had told you they felled homocidal and where on antidepressants known to cause people to feel that way).
While I agree with you, most people in America could cause a lot more trouble buying a gun and driving around with that.
I realise that is a very stretched metaphor, but even stupid people can cause serious problems, if they don't mind going to jail for them. I'm sure cell blocking would be a jailable offense. Harder (but not impossible) to get caught for however.
You can build radio transmitter to kick off other GSM, TV, radio stations, Wifi, but it's illegal and authorities can easily found the source of the signal. I don't think it could be a big threat to national security.
Chris has basically setup a make-shift cell tower in the room where the talk was being held, with two high-gain antenna pointed out towards the crowd. Behind him he had... (bear with me, I am not an EE guy) a huge receiver hooked to the antenna.
He kept belaboring the point that he was only turning the power up to some micro-fraction of what the box could output.
When someone at the front pushed him for more info "Why can't you turn it up more and try and pick up more cell phones from around the hotel?" he replied that if he "cranked it all the way up" he would "kick every cell phone in Vegas off their towers"... and then he kept presenting.
Given that Paget knows his stuff, and he is sitting there with equipment from any radio store... and could take at least most cell phones offline for a few-mile-radius if what he said was true... it seems to me that the biggest thread to America is just smart people in general.
He could hypothetically put that think in an SUV, turn it on, and just drive across town, causing havok all day long. ANYONE COULD.
Every time politicians learn about a new "threat to America" they get all excited, throw a saddle on the damn issue and ride it to glory, screaming and shouting the whole way until we can't remember why we ever thought it was safe to leave our houses in the first place.
I understand the need to push your own agendas for elections, but besides not being able to take laptops on airplanes, I only see a whole lot of hurt for citizens coming out of this.
While we're at it, you know what else is the worst threat ever to America? How about education, health, the sun, asteroids and gangs of unruly dogs.
<sigh>
[1] http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202298/fcc_con...